HIS REMEDY FOR LOVE

    XV

    Since to obtain thee nothing me will stead,
    I have a med’cine that shall cure my love. 
    The powder of her heart dried, when she’s dead,
    That gold nor honour ne’er had power to move;
      Mixed with her tears that ne’er her true love crost,
    Nor at fifteen ne’er longed to be a bride;
    Boiled with her sighs, in giving up the ghost,
    That for her late deceased husband died;
      Into the same then let a woman breathe,
    That being chid did never word reply;
    With one thrice married’s prayers, that did bequeath
    A legacy to stale virginity. 
      If this receipt have not the power to win me,
      Little I’ll say, but think the devil’s in me!

AN ALLUSION TO THE PHOENIX

    XVI

    ’Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round
      Of the birds’ kind, the phoenix is alone,
      Which best by you of living things is known;
    None like to that, none like to you is found! 
    Your beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun;
      The precious spices be your chaste desire,
      Which being kindled by that heavenly fire,
    Your life, so like the phoenix’s begun. 
    Yourself thus burned in that sacred flame,
      With so rare sweetness all the heavens perfuming;
      Again increasing as you are consuming,
    Only by dying born the very same. 
      And winged by fame you to the stars ascend;
      So you of time shall live beyond the end.

TO TIME

    XVII

    Stay, speedy time!  Behold, before thou pass
      From age to age, what thou hast sought to see,
      One in whom all the excellencies be,
    In whom heaven looks itself as in a glass. 
    Time, look thou too in this translucent glass,
      And thy youth past in this pure mirror see! 
      As the world’s beauty in his infancy,
    What it was then, and thou before it was. 
    Pass on and to posterity tell this—­
      Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been. 
      Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
    In perfect human shape all heavenly bliss;
      And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
      That she is gone, her like again to see.

TO THE CELESTIAL NUMBERS

    XVIII

    To this our world, to learning, and to heaven,
      Three nines there are, to every one a nine;
      One number of the earth, the other both divine;
    One woman now makes three odd numbers even. 
    Nine orders first of angels be in heaven;
      Nine muses do with learning still frequent: 
      These with the gods are ever resident. 
    Nine worthy women to the world were given. 
    My worthy one to these nine